Reality TV

"It's the primary America we're in... There's this primary America of freeways and jet flights and TV and movie spectaculars. And people caught up in this primary America seem to go through huge portions of their lives without much consciousness of what's immediately around them. The media have convinced them that what's right around them is unimportant. And that's why they're lonely. You see it in their faces. First the little flicker of seraching and then when they look at you, you're just a kind of object. You don't count. You're not what they're looking for. You're not on TV." from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig

Cultural Commentary from the Entertainment Capitol of the World

'Slow Ride, Take It Easy'- Los Angeles, CA

As I still reel from creeping culture shock over these past three weeks since returning to my native Southern California, I'm amazed at how easy it is to revel in first world culture.

Southern California is on FIRE - literally! Currently there are about twenty-something fires out of control throughout the southland. I flip on the tube and the news flash says 'Breaking News - Lake Piru'. That's where I went to elementary school with Dave McCutcheon - Piru elementary. They are saying there's no current danger to the condor preserve behind the lake where they used to shoot the Dukes of Hazards and that Magic Mountain to the east is safe, reporting from News Chopper 2. I could go on and on about the southland fires but the media is doing such a good job there's really no need. I can say that over the course of the entire day the sky was blanketed in this smokey orange-filtered haze that changed the color temperature of the light dramatically. This is a once every-other-year type of natural disaster with the hot easterly Santa Ana winds, something that we SoCal natives are used to.

What's up with 'Cavemen' - the new comedy on ABC? I mean the Geico commercials were funny and the premiere episode a few weeks ago was... mildly entertaining, even borderline clever at times - "Eagle! And I just got this yesterday!!" says Andy, in reference to his Nintendo Wii golf game - but WTF?! I guess it has something to do with discrimination... the cavemen just want to be seen as regular people? But they're not regular people, they're cavemen! They just want to be treated like regular people. "Hope you like the smell of RUBBER!" was the best line so far in tonight's episode.

Even though the fires have tragically forced hundreds of thousands of residents and movie stars from their homes, it still makes for good TV entertainment news. Here in LA its hard to tell what's news anymore. "See John Travolta fly over the fires..."

Other current TV shows I've caught up with since I've been home: Dancing with the Stars, David Letterman (rerun with Jude Law hopped up on blow, Sara Silverman and John Fogerty), Carpoolers (on now), The Daily Show, The Colbert Report (the one where he announced that he was thinking of announcing whether or not he will run for the Presidency), CSI-Miami, a bit of South Park and... a whole bunch more that I don't have the time or energy to write about. [There was more to this brilliant social commentary but I came back to reformat this post and it went bye bye - oh well]

Did I mention that LA was on fire?!

Bathroom Sink - Los Angeles, CA

Cheesy Beef Melt... YUCK!

Thank God its Drive Thru and you don't have to be seen ordering this in person!

Rollin' into Southern California

Love those smog enhanced sunsets...

Windmill Along I-5

Newness Around the Bay Bridge - SF

Lost in La La Land

And the one line that keeps running through my head of late as I plot my next move is:

"Anyone can get a job. It takes a real man to make it without working," from Mickey Rourke in Barfly, screenplay by Charles Bukowski and cinematography by Robby Muller (Down By Law, Wings of Desire and one of my all time favorites, Dead Man).

Time to catch some rays of sun outside... it's Friday.

Whoa... Back in the First World

Here at the top of humanity, life in San Francisco, the upper crust of all of human kind - the super first world - the best city in the US other than New York, which is something other than a city entirely.

Thanks to those few faithful readers out there who have been crying out for more digital scribbles on this here blog (via email) and with way too much going on in such a short amount of time I had to stop and get something up so I'll go list style as my creative Latin writing mojo is on the wane here in the only America that most North Americans know, the America of the US of A!

• Went to traffic court to replace my lost/stolen drivers license and the judge waived the 'failure to appear' charges against my outstanding seat belt ticket. Thanks Bro!
• Now I can't find my passport... after all of this travelling. I came here with no ID and was carrying my passport in my back pocket, just like the Lonely Planet passport campaign recommended and it must have slipped out somewhere and is... G O N E.
• However, I received a notarized copy of my birth certificate so that I can now apply for a British passport when back in Los Angeles here in the next day or two. Hello London and the European Community!
• After deciding that I'm going to dedicate every waking moment here on out to photography and chasing the light, I got pulled into a J O B interview here in the Bay Area this. "So... what have you got to loose?" asked the CEO this afternoon. "Basically six months to find out if its going to pay off. Another start up... hmmm.
• Everything here is like, really expensive.
• I am super lucky to have some of the coolest people as my closest friends - thanks.
• I practised Tai Chi for the first time in my life (thanks Gary)... actually, that's the first martial art I've ever tried other than getting kicked in the thigh by the Fletch Monster
• No injuries yet to speak of... (fingers crossed). And if you knew some of my friends, you'd be surprised... like the Fletch Monster, or Cal Santos when on getting it on with the Hornitos
• Religion continues to be at the forefront of my brain after finishing Sam Harris' book 'End of Faith' and as I come back to the land of the free and the Christians and silly presidential politics and 'will Hillary win' and feel compelled to make a documentary about faith...
• Speaking of film making and faith, check out these super silly short Los Toros Films staring yours truly.
• Umm...
• Oh yeah...
• I've eaten way too many chocolate chip cookies, watched too much TV, spent way too much dinero, drank too much tequila but am happy and thankful for now.
• Oh yeah, check this out - the new Cannonball Run!

Nature Air - Carbon Neutral

And they actually call themselves the world's first (only?) carbon netural airline. Try figuring out what that means! It's actually pretty great (*), especially for all of you that are socially, environemtally and politically conscious. Is there anyone who isn't these days? Gosh!

These pictures were taking on one of the clearest days I'd seen in weeks, flying out of Puerto Jimenez down on the Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica back to San Jose. I LOVE flying!!

(*) and somewhat complicated to the point where I don't quite even understand it. basically, there's a specific tax on all... actually, i'm not going to have time to explain it now. they pay an additional tax on all of the fuel they use to cancel out the damage they are causing to the environment. more on this later... maybe.

Out on the Weekend

Here are a few more pics from the whirlwind Costa Rica trip. What I really want to say is thank you to so many very kind people that I met along my travels - Don Juan and all the friendly folk at Rancho Margot, Pedro up in Liberia who was my driver, guide and friend, the gringo couple in Mal Pais that gave me a lift from the ferry in Punta Arenas, the other gringo couple that gave me a life back from Montezuma, Amos Bien at Rara Avis for that great hiking tour through the rain forest jungle trail in the rain and mud with rubber hiking boots, and thanks to Nicole Newman at Rough Guides for these cool opportunities. The list could go on and on but I especially wanna thank Caro Goodfellow of http://www.ticotoursandadventours.com/ who made this trip doable as opposed to impossible. Thanks Caro!

Volcan Arenal with El Castillo Below

It took me two nights of camping and hiking on top of a mountain (El Mirador, courtesy of www.ranchomargot.org) in the jungle, in the dark with poisonous snakes and lots of moisture to make this shot, one of only a handful that came out. My Costa Rican adventure has almost come to an end. One last trip today up to La Selva Reserve and Rara Avis (Rare Birds) and then flying back to Los Angeles on Sunday. Chau Costa Rica.

Rain on the Brain

The overhead light bulb masquerading as a lamp is a total buzz kill but if I keep my head down its barely tolerable. At 9:20pm I come down stairs from my humble quarters here in Samara and find that the bar and restaurant are closed. The night watchman unlocks the kitchen and then the cooler and hands me a cold Imperial beer and puts his finger to his lips. Shhh. I slip him 1,000 Colones and say thanks. It's been a very, very long day.

It all started way back in Liberia, Guanacaste at 5:00AM this morning. The sound of pouring rain pounding on my roof woke me fifteen minutes before my alarm went off. DAMN! It's been over a week of constant rain but low and behold the rain came to a gentle stop just as I was packing up to set out to meet the driver for the trek down south. Pedro and I grab some baked goods and coffee and are on the road before 6:30. First stop is a small (tiny) town called Guatil where they make hand-crafted ceramics. The rain has me in a horrible mood and I can barely get the shots I need before moving on.

Then we swing through Nicoya and it starts raining again as we head up another bad, muddy dirt road towards Barra Honda National Park to attempt to see the caverns, on the shot list. We arrive at noon and they tell us its gonna be about four hours to get to the caverns, down inside and then back. I hesitate and then say OK. Two guides grab a bunch of thick climbing rope and harnesses for Pedro and I. Then we hoof it about an hour and a half straight up a really bad and muddy dirt trail. I slip and nearly fall about every five minutes and the tripod begins to dig into my shoulder as sweat pours down my forehead and into my eyes constantly. The sound of howling mono congos or Howler Monkeys is eerie and a bit monstrous as we finally reach the top where it levels out, still continuing along a very wet and muddy trail.

Finally we arrive at the main cavern - a big black ominous hole in the ground - that you can't see into. They begin to rig up a bunch of ropes from nearby trees and then pull the rusty hatch off the safety ladder that descends into the depths below. First Jose, one of the guides mounts up with his helmet and head lamp and descends. "Hand over foot," is all he tells me as I begin my decent. The small rungs on this ancient ladder are not only slippery from being wet but now super muddy from the bottom of Jose's shoes. At times the ladder is pressed flush up against the rock and I have to hold onto the outside rails in order not to fall, sometimes skipping two even three rungs. The other guide above belays the line as I head down 20 meters and finaly touch bottom with the opening now a tiny skylight hole above.

We spend two hours down there, sheltered from the pouring rain as I try in vain to get an image that shows the other two guys with their lamps and all of the fine stalagtites and finally I call it off and we head back up, once again into the driving tropical rain. The walk back down was even more treacherous and now the trails are like rivers of mud as the jungle dumps its brown murky slush upon us. It was quite a day and actually put me in a better mood as I stripped down of every piece of clothing at the car, completely drenched. When we hit Samara that evening around 7PM we went straight to a small restaurant near the beach and feasted on fresh mussels and fish fillet smothered in a spicy avocado sauce - possibly the best meal so far. And the pics in the cavern could be some of the best thus far also. Pura Vida.

Costa Rican Cowboy Country

September 17, 2007
Liberia, Costa Rica

After a not-too-comfortable five hour bus ride up from San Jose sitting next to a German exchange student who gave me her blog address and then took it back ("It´s in German")with no end to the pouring rain we arrived at the Libeia bus terminal safely. I´m now sitting at Pronto Pizza where the kid in the kitchen goes out back to fire my pizza in the wood burning oven in this historic building built over a hundred years ago. It's muggy, hot and humid and feels exceptionally comfortable. The only things not antique about this place is the big red Coca Cola machine, the brightly lit television showing first league soccer from Europe and the music coming from the neatly hidden new-fangled speakers - Stevie Ray Vaugh, Lou Reed and now Led Zepplin.

I have no more transport and several shots to nail within the next week before departure. I ask the waitress if she knows anyone with a car that might want to run around with a crazy photographer for a few days. She writes down 'Ronny Centeno' on a little white square piece of paper and tells me to call him in the morning.

After a quick break from the rain it starts up again. Can´t belive I don´t even have a rain jacket... somehow I just haven´t needed one thus far. My personal pronto pizza arrives piping hot as Led Zepplin takes over the stero and is and oh so good. Costa Rican pizza beats Argentina hands down. When will the Argentines step into the 21st Culinary Century and get with the modern food program? There´s more to life than parrilla and pasta.

As I finish the pizza thinking how could this possibly be any better, the waitress waltzess up with a huge platter of cheesecake. "Would you like to try some?" Would I... and its not even my birthday!

Short Tales from the Road

There's a cartoonist who is hard of hearing from Spain staying here at the Hotel Diana in San Jose where I've just returned from the jungle to do some more editing before I hit the Pacific Coast. He is constantly smoking a cigar and is now stocking the communal fridge with cans of beer... many cans of beer.

- The road from Rancho Margot to Monte Verde was washed out so I took a van to a boat, crossed Lake Arenal beneath the active volcano and then went on horseback some a long 30kms to a 4x4 jeep that took us back up into the mountains to the town of Santa Helena. My body is now just beginning to recover.

- When I arrived at Villa Verde Mountain Resort Lodge the group I was meeting was just leaving for a night walk into the jungle to see nocturnal animals in the mist which was almost rain. Just as the rain hit hard, one of the girls in our small group started to feel weak, fell to the ground and began to have a seizure. I'd seen this before, took charge and waited for the paramedics. We put her on a backboard and carried her through the dense wet jungle up to the waiting ambulance and I went with her to the doctors office where the seizure wore off. All ended well and she was up and at 'em the next day... a true trooper.

- Stayed three excellent nights at Rancho Margot just below the Arenal Volcano. They are completely 'off the grid', generating all of their power by a hydro turbine sourced from a natural spring and are just beginning to convert more than a ton of waste material into Methane gas using biodigestors. There's a complete garden, cows, horses, true free range chickens and it goes on and on. One of the coolest organic farms I've seen and maybe the very first Eco Dude Ranch.

- Threw myself off an 80 meter (253 feet) bridge with a bungee cord strapped to myself in perfect swan dive fashion. Judges gave me an 8.5, not bad for a man who is almost 40 years of age.

- Storms continue to pound on us here in Central America and as I topped the Continental Divide, the view of both the Atlantic and the Pacific was shrouded in fog. But the Monte Verde Cloud Forrest Reserve really was spectacularly beautiful.

Kickin' It in San Jose, Costa Rica

So I had to hang back in San Jose for a bit and catch up on editing and processing of over 3000 images, not even 50% of the shoot yet. Today I was craving a hamburger right around lunch time and set out away from the computer and drives looking for such. Went through the Hotel Del Rey, where all the rich, older and single Americans hang out and pick up on readily and available woman painted up and lounging around. Muy caro y aburido.

Then I bumped into Oscar who hangs mostly on the street and who showed me around a few nights ago. He needed a dollar for his first beer of the day. Then rounding the corner onto main pedestrian walkway, I see The Burger Factory and know I must go in. Pretty decent Latin American hamburger with fries and a guanaba fruit drink. After an entertainment news briefing on the television mounted up in the corner of the burger joint on the successful transition for Bow Wow from his start with Snoop in the rap world and now getting a big flash in Hollywood, Woody Allen's 'Purple Rose of Cairo' began, which I really enjoy. First time I saw that was when I was 17 and traveling in France with Brad Carpenter before our senior year of high school. I came back to the hotel and watched the rest of the movie and then took a lazy Sunday afternoon nap.

Now, as I continue to edit and process images, no where near close to being finished, having missed the Bunge Jumping tour this morning (was at the hotel lobby at 8:30AM promptly) Hank Williams wafts from the jukebox from the bar across the street called Nashville, a place where retired older American, Canadians and Australians sit around and get sloshed talking about nothing over double Johnny Walker Red label scotches. It is raining warm and steadily as lighting and thunder boom in the background, a typical afternoon during the rainy season in the tropics.

Forgot how dangerous cable TV is... after 'Purple Rose of Cairo' I caught 'Along Came Mary', most of it, which I had only seen parts of before. I found myself laughing even though its soo stupid. Ben Stiller is so good at playing a complete loser!

The Jungle... Finally

I'm finishing my very first beer up here in the jungle, the north Caribbean coast of Costa Rica, a place called Tortugeruo where everyone comes to see the big sea turtles lay their eggs, up close on the border with Nicaragua where hurricane Felix is just about to pounce. It's an amazing three hour boat ride up through these narrow and winding canals that weave their way through the dense lush jungle. Saw a couple of big crocs on the way up but they are so hard to shoot as they hit the water as soon as they hear the motorboat roaring up.

So... I'm finishing my second can of the local Imperial beer at the local bar, the only one I can find with locals in it, chow down on two yummy potato and chicken empanadas with tons of hot sauce, pay the bill and turn around and SMACK, I get shot right between the eyes! I quickly look around and then down at the ground and there's this little kid all of six years of age holding a smoking toy gun wearing a shiny silver sheriff's badge. "What the HELL do you think you're doing?" I angrily ask in a raised tone of voice. "Playing," he answers as he quickly reaches for the dart laying at my feet. I promptly stomp on it, doing my best to stay calm while the stinging starts to subside and tell him if that would have hit me in the eye, I would kill him. "Entiendes?!" He just waits for me to lift my foot, pulls the dart out and runs away, screaming like a banshee.

Ahhh.... the Caribbean Coast!

Wide open beach in Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica

That's me... with proof that I am actually lugging around the monster Bogen tripod in all of these remote parts. If I bring it, gotta use it, right?

Sr. Caribe

Stuff to Learn and See By #1

Things I've observed, learned, seen or heard in the last little while here in Costa Rica.

• The women are all bigger, browner, rounder and really like to strut their stuff about town. True Latinas.
• No problem getting corn tortillas or HOT SAUCE anywhere!
• Gallo Pinto = Yummy
• Watching the US Tennis Open on ESPN2 'en vivo' at some café here in San Jose and Zabaleta is falling apart. He threw his racket at the ground and it bounce back at him almost hitting him in the face. I'll never be able to watch or even play(*) tennis again without thinking of DFW's 'Infinite Jest', which I read half of (500 pages, super small print) in Argentina.
• Pretty sure I'll go back too Argentina but just in and out of Buenos Aires this time. Still have to get to Patagonia, Salta, Jujuy, Tucuman and beyond... like the CHACO!
• Came to Costa Rica with no sunglasses OR rain jacket and just bought a pair of Ray Bans on the street from a vendor for $5USD... down from $10USD without even trying. Didn't have the heart to bargain him down further.
• I've got a kick ass travel coordinator based out of San Jose that works for www.ticotoursandadventours.com named Carolina who is helping me with logistics big time. She's got to renew her visa (she's Venezuelan) and we're off to Panama this weekend. She's a morena and sexy... and has made the difference for this trip. Thanks Caro!
• Love the morochitas... but not too morochita
• Costa Rica, or at least San Jose is really, really lush and tropical, obvio. I'd forgotten about Central America's natural beauty.
• Gotta get to Colombia, Venezuela (with the new British passport) and then Brazil!
• Forgot my camera cable to connect to the local computer to upload these stellar pics of the Caribbean Coast
• My bank account is in a state of crisis.
• They have trannies here too
• It rains a LOT
• $500 Colones = $1USD
• My neck where the camera strap hangs got totally sunburned the very first day I walked around in San Jose.
• The sun is starting to come out as the clouds part. I put my new fake Ray Bans on. Already got a mini-umbrella for $2USD. Now I just need a rain jacket
• I really miss playing tennis, left my racket in BA with Luis. Maybe Diana in LA will be up for a few sets next month
• They have cartoneros here too but they just don't have carritos, just big black plastic trash bags.
• B R E A T H E... and the rest will come